Vehicle Bourne IED's of Islamic State
Vehicle Bourne Improvised Explosive Devices, or VBIEDs, are extensively used by the Islamic State. These car bombs were often manned by suicide bombers, so SVBIED (Suicide VBIEDs) is another common term for them. The Islamic State was formed in Iraq as a militant group and then expanded from Iraq into Syria, Afghanistan, Tunisia and the Philippines (most notable in Marawi), with a range of splinter organisations and sub-cell groups.(1) Compared to other militant groups, who operate as insurgencies, the Islamic State has captured huge amounts of armoured military vehicles and heavy weapons, allowing them to be a strong force even during conventional warfare. Because of their large fleet of both converted and military vehicles, they are reliant on workshops scattered around in different districts (called Wilayats) for repairs, upgrades and other modifications to the vehicles. Two of the most major vehicle conversion factories operated by the Islamic State are in the region around Raqqa and another in the Deir ez-Zor. (2)
According to Hugo Kaaman (3)- "The group’s use of a fleet of SVBIEDs was key to its rapid territorial expansion in Syria and Iraq in 2013-14. They served as powerful force multipliers, giving the numerically inferior insurgents the ability to deliver tons of explosives to designated targets. SVBIEDs were used tactically to punch holes in static defences, allowing for follow-up ground attacks that would regularly overrun larger enemy positions. Additionally, they also had a psychological effect, demoralizing their targets while buoying the spirits of fellow ISIS fighters to continue fighting."
As the conflict moved on from small scale into a much larger scale convoy with defined frontlines rather than a full insurgency, ISIS began welding steel plates as improvised armour to a range of vehicles in order to shield them, their drivers, and their payloads from incoming fire up until they were to be detonated by their driver. The BMP-1 hull shown here, belonging to BMP-1 225, had it's turret removed and placed on a technical as the vehicle hull was instead packed with explosives and driven by one man as a VBIED, so rather than sacrifice the gun as well it was removed. BMP-1 225 was used to attack a military camp, but was destroyed when attempting to navigate around trenches into the entrance to the military camp itself, as it appeared in an Islamic State propaganda film.
Over time the Islamic State would come to feature improvised armour plating concentrated at the front of most civilian cars and trucks used in urban warfare, with metal plates focused on shielding the engine block, windshield, and tires. The plate covering the engine block typically had slats cut out of it in order to prevent overheating, and the driver’s viewing port usually consisted of a rectangular hole either covered with protective glass or coupled with a smaller sliding metal plate that could be slid into place to form a more narrow rectangle when the vehicle came under fire. They also captured an industrial mine which gave them access to bulldozers and large dump trucks, which were also converted into VBIED's capable of carrying 40 tons of explosives or more.
Some vehicles in Islamic State quickly adopted SLAT or cage armour over the top of the original flat metal plates, and the purpose of these was ideally shear the warhead on incoming explosives and RPG's off before the round could detonate, or if that failed provide some additional spacing for the armour to prevent the V-shaped penetration effect of anti-tank grenades such as the RPG-7 from being fully successful due to the larger air gap between the detonation and the main armour plates. SLAT would then become increasing common on large numbers of Islamic State vehicles, particularly those from Raqqa. Chains were also sometimes used for lightweight shrapnel protection as well.
This was an up-armoured bulldozer VBIED (you can see a not as heavily upgraded version next to it) that was captured in the urban areas in and around Damascus and Eastern Ghouta, Southwestern Syria, in circa 2014.
Note that the dozer blade has been removed and instead replaced with hanging chain armour and additional SLAT armour.
Kurdish Peshmerga forces towing a destroyed Islamic State up-armoured VBIED vehicle out of a defensive ditch around a camp.
Bulldozers are quite popular for conversion into armoured vehicles because they can support very heavy weights and their large size means when used as a VBIED you can pack a ton of explosives inside, which seems to be their most common use, but they are also used as troop carriers, like this example.
The obvious downside is that massive vehicles like these become priority targets, and they are often engaged by RPG's, massed small arms fire and anti-material rifles.
The prevalence of such up-armoured vehicles in the Syrian conflict has seen the return of anti-material rifles to the battlefield in surprisingly large numbers, with even some WW2 era PTRD's in 14.5MM being seen in use by various groups in the past few years, as well as large numbers of field-made or commercially produced Anti-Materiel Rifles for their role in penetrating this kind of armour from longer ranges, which is safer when dealing with VBIED's or explosive vehicles.
An Islamic State Bulldozer IED built from a dump truck, al-Qaryatayn, Central Syria, pre-2015. I know of a similar vehicle was fought against by the Al-Rahman Legion (an FSA, Free Syrian Army sub-group/ally) and they hit it with several RPG's and anti-material rifles until it stopped moving. In order to be certain it was destroyed they then dug a tunnel underneath it, loaded the tunnel with explosives and then detonating them, resulting in the vehicles weaker belly armor being blown open and cooking the inside.
Islamic State Bulldozers preparing to be converted into up-armoured vehicles, Central Syria, late May 2015, which were captured at the Khunayfis Phosphate mine when it was overrun by the Islamic State.
1- Solomon, Martin, ‘Islamic State: Understanding the Nature of the Beast and its Funding’, February 28, (2017)
2- Oryx,'Armour in the Islamic State, the Story of 'The Workshop', (2017)
3- Hugo Kaaman, Car Bombs as Weapons of War: ISIS's Development of SVBIED's, 2014-2019, (2019)